An apparatus, program product, and method utilize a “document trail” to facilitate the location of other documents reachable from a given hypertext document. The document trail includes a plurality of identifiers that respectively identify a plurality of interlinked hypertext documents and permit a user to navigate from a origination hypertext document to a destination hypertext document simply by following the trail of interlinked hypertext documents to the destination hypertext document.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method of displaying a hypertext document, the method comprising: (a) displaying a display representation of at least a portion of a first hypertext document on a computer display, the portion of the first hypertext document including a hypertext link definition that references a second hypertext document; (b) determining whether the second hypertext document is one of a plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in a document trail, wherein the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents is arranged in a predetermined sequence and includes a selected origination hypertext document and a selected destination hypertext document, wherein the document trail is a selected one of a plurality of document trails, with each document trail associated with one of a plurality of origination hypertext documents, and wherein determining whether the second hypertext document is in the document trail includes: (i) searching a history list for the selected origination hypertext document, the history list including a plurality of previously-viewed hypertext documents arranged in the order in which the previously-viewed hypertext documents were viewed; (ii) comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document in the document trail; (iii) initially storing in a list of active document trails each document trail associated with the selected origination hypertext document, wherein comparing the previously-viewed hypertext document includes comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document for each document trail in the list of active document trails; (iv) removing from the list of active document trails any document trail in which at least one of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document does not match the corresponding interlinked hypertext document for that document trail; and (v) determining that the second hypertext document is one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the selected document trail if the selected document trail remains in the list of active document trails and the second hypertext document follows the first hypertext document in the selected document trail; and (c) displaying one of first and second display representations of the hypertext link definition within the display representation of the portion of the first hypertext document based upon whether the second hypertext document is one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the document trail, wherein the first display representation indicates that the second hypertext document is one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the document trail, and wherein the second display representation indicates that the second hypertext document is not one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the document trail.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected origination hypertext document is associated with a bookmark.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the bookmark is one of a plurality of bookmarks, and wherein each document trail is associated with one of the plurality of bookmarks, the method further comprising: (a) displaying a display representation of at least a portion of the plurality of bookmarks; and (b) displaying in association with the display representation of any bookmark a display representation of any document trail associated therewith.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein displaying the display representation of a document trail includes displaying a user interface control adjacent the display representation of the bookmark associated therewith, the method further comprising navigating to the origination document of a document trail in response to user input directed to the user interface control associated therewith.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein a selected document trail is associated with a color, and wherein the user interface control therefor has a color that matches that of the selected document trail.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein each document trail is associated with one of a plurality of bookmarks, with each bookmark associated with the origination hypertext document for the associated document trail, and wherein searching the history list includes searching the history list for an active bookmark among the plurality of bookmarks, the active bookmark representative of a last bookmark selected in response to user input.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: (a) displaying a trail control panel on the computer display, the trail control panel including a user interface control for each active document trail in the list of active document trails; and (b) in response to user input directed to a selected user interface control in the trail control panel, displaying a display representation of at least a portion of a next hypertext document in the active document trail associated with the selected user interface control.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising displaying a display representation of at least a portion of the second hypertext document on the computer display in response to user input directed to the one of the first and second display representations of the hypertext link definition.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second hypertext documents are formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and wherein the document trail includes an identifier for each of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents, with the identifier for each interlinked hypertext document including a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second display representations of the hypertext link definition are distinguished based upon color.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first display representation includes an icon.
12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising displaying information about the document trail in response to user input directed to the one of the first and second display representations of the hypertext link definition.
13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, in response to user input to display a display representation of at least a portion of a selected interlinked hypertext document in the document trail, prefetching each interlinked hypertext document in the document trail subsequent to the selected interlinked hypertext document.
14. The method of claim 13 , wherein prefetching each interlinked hypertext document in the document trail is performed only in response to user input to display the selected origination hypertext document.
15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents further includes an immediately subsequent hypertext document to the selected origination hypertext document, and wherein prefetching each interlinked hypertext document in the document trail is performed only in response to user input to display the immediately subsequent hypertext document while the selected origination hypertext document is displayed.
16. An apparatus, comprising: (a) a memory; (b) a document trail resident in the memory, the document trail identifying a plurality of interlinked hypertext documents; and (c) a program resident in the memory, the program configured to display a display representation of at least a portion of a first hypertext document to a user, the display representation of the first hypertext document including a display representation of a hypertext link definition that references a second hypertext document, with the display representation of the hypertext link definition selected from first and second display representations to indicate whether the second hypertext document is identified in the document trail; wherein the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents is arranged in a predetermined sequence and includes a selected origination hypertext document and a selected destination hypertext document, wherein the document trail is a selected one of a plurality of document trails, with each document trail associated with one of a plurality of origination hypertext documents, and wherein the program is further configured to determine whether the second hypertext document is in the document trail by: (i) searching a history list for the selected origination hypertext document, the history list including a plurality of previously-viewed hypertext documents arranged in the order in which the previously-viewed hypertext documents were viewed; (ii) comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document in the document trail; (iii) initially storing in a list of active document trails each document trail associated with the selected origination hypertext document, wherein comparing the previously-viewed hypertext document includes comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document for each document trail in the list of active document trails; (iv) removing from the list of active document trails any document trail in which at least one of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document does not match the corresponding interlinked hypertext document for that document trail; and (v) determining that the second hypertext document is one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the selected document trail if the selected document trail remains in the list of active document trails and the second hypertext document follows the first hypertext document in the selected document trail.
17. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the selected origination hypertext document is associated with a bookmark among a plurality of bookmarks, wherein each document trail is associated with one of the plurality of bookmarks, and wherein the program is further configured to display a display representation of at least a portion of the plurality of bookmarks, and to display in association with the display representation of any bookmark a display representation of any document trail associated therewith.
18. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the document trail is associated with a bookmark among a plurality of bookmarks, wherein the program is configured to search the history list by searching for an active bookmark among the plurality of bookmarks, and wherein the program is further configured to set the selected bookmark to the active bookmark in response to user input to select the selected bookmark.
19. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the first and second hypertext documents are formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and wherein the document trail includes an identifier for each of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents, with the identifier for each interlinked hypertext document including a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
20. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the program is configured to indicate that the second hypertext document is identified in the document trail by including in the display representation of the hypertext link definition a predetermined color associated with the document trail.
21. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the program is configured to indicate that the second hypertext document is identified in the document trail by including in the display representation of the hypertext link definition a predetermined icon associated with the document trail.
22. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the program is further configured to, in response to user input to display a display representation of at least a portion of a selected interlinked hypertext document in the document trail, prefetch each interlinked hypertext document in the document trail subsequent to the selected interlinked hypertext document.
23. A program product, comprising: (a) a program configured to display a display representation of at least a portion of a first hypertext document to a user, the display representation of the first hypertext document including a display representation of a hypertext link definition that references a second hypertext document, with the display representation of the hypertext link definition selected from first and second display representations to indicate whether the second hypertext document is identified in a document trail that identifies a plurality of interlinked hypertext documents; and (b) a signal bearing media bearing the program; wherein the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents is arranged in a predetermined sequence and includes a selected origination hypertext document and a selected destination hypertext document, wherein the document trail is a selected one of a plurality of document trails, with each document trail associated with one of a plurality of origination hypertext documents, and wherein the program is further configured to determine whether the second hypertext document is in the document trail by: (i) searching a history list for the selected origination hypertext document, the history list including a plurality of previously-viewed hypertext documents arranged in the order in which the previously-viewed hypertext documents were viewed; (ii) comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document in the document trail; (iii) initially storing in a list of active document trails each document trail associated with the selected origination hypertext document, wherein comparing the previously-viewed hypertext document includes comparing each of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document with a corresponding interlinked hypertext document for each document trail in the list of active document trails; (iv) removing from the list of active document trails any document trail in which at least one of the previously-viewed hypertext documents viewed since the selected origination hypertext document does not match the corresponding interlinked hypertext document for that document trail; and (v) determining that the second hypertext document is one of the plurality of interlinked hypertext documents in the selected document trail if the selected document trail remains in the list of active document trails and the second hypertext document follows the first hypertext document in the selected document trail.
24. The program product of claim 23 , wherein the signal bearing media is recordable media.
25. The program product of claim 23 , wherein the signal bearing media is transmission type media.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
September 18, 1998
April 29, 2003
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